You will need to sign on with your LLLID (La Leche League ID) before you can post. If you have never claimed your LLLID, create your LLLID now. To sign in, click the LLLID Sign On button in the upper right corner. Enter your LLLID Alias and click the button again.

Re: Nursing pain - help :/

What I tell moms who have cracks is to nurse before baby is hungry. If baby is hungry, feed baby with an alternative and then finish at the breast. Also change positions to alter how baby is on the breast.

I would NOT feed a newborn baby with a bottle. That carries a high risk of causing nipple preference. If I had to, I would definitely always offer the breast to finish at the breast and then get rid of the bottle as soon as I could.

For healing the cracks, moist healing, such as gel pads and lanolin, have worked for me. I always get bad scabs when I have a newborn baby, even with a great latch. You can also look up Newman's Cream and see if you can get what you need to make that up there locally. It works very well.

IME nipple pain extending past two weeks is due to a latch problem or thrush. I always tell myself that first 7-10 days I just have to grin and bear it.

LLL is free Are you sure it was a La Leche League leader, as found here on this website?

Bear in mind that first 30-60 seconds is going to hurt like a son of a gun.

Re: Nursing pain - help :/

OK, I apologize for long post!

I am in the US, I have no idea how LLL of Portugal does things, but I have never heard of a LLL Leader charging a fee for service, as we are a volunteer organization. Anyway, here is the info for LLL Leaders in Portugal from the look up directory from the front page here, just FYI. http://www.llli.org/portugal.html I have no idea what it says but there seems to be Leaders to contact.

Not every LLL Leader or every LC IS going to be helpful for every mom or in every situation, if the first (or 5th) person you talk to is not helpful, try someone else. You are welcome to call ANY LLL Leader anywhere in the world, BTW.

IBLCE International is the international organization that board certifies Lactation Consultants. This is their website. http://iblce.org/ According to them, there are 13 IBCLCs (International Board Certified Lactation Consultants) in Portugal. But they do not seem to have a way of finding an IBCLC on the website. There is a look-up, but you need to already have the IBCLCs name-this is so one can verify the person is an IBCLC (In the US, at least, ANYONE can call themselves a lactation consultant, and it leads to confusion.) IMO, it's not that all IBCLCs are wonderful & able to solve every issue and anyone who is not an IBCLC is not qualified, far from it. I know of excellent lactation consultants who are not Board Certified and a few IBCLCs I don't think are very good. But if you are seeing an IBCLC, you at least know that person had a certain amount of education and clinical training, and continuing education, which is very important, as the field of lactation assistance is a rapidly evolving one. Maybe you can contact IBLCE International and ask how you would go about looking up an IBCLC near you.

This website allows you to look up IBCLCs, but as far as I can tell, there is only one registered on the site in Portugal. This is a professional organization that IBCLCs can join and register with if they choose to and they have to pay for the service. So it is not going to have the names of every IBCLC. www.ilca.org

I know of a lactation consultant in the US who will work with mothers via Skype, and I imagine there are others. Would something like that work for you?

What about getting a second opinion, or seeing an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist or whatever doctor you may have that would be able to assess your baby for tongue tie? Perhaps your friend who is an LC would have some suggestions for that? It should not be tearing your nipples up so much to nurse if everything is fine, so, everything must not be fine.

If you want to try pumping for a few days (it may not take a whole week) I have to go out on a limb here and say that is not necessarily terrible advice. Yes, nipple/flow confusion is real, yes, pumping and bottles can cause further issues. Yes, it’s a risk! And you still may need to fix the problem that caused the injured nipples in the first place. But if a mother is simply in too much pain to nurse then a break from nursing at the breast to allow for healing may be the best choice for that mom. I know IBCLCs I trust a lot who will make this recommendation from time to time when a mom has severe nipple injury. But as mommal said, this is your decision to make, knowing the risks. You can try to offset some of the risk of nipple/flow confusion by trying cup feeding or paced bottle feeding. There is a cup feeding video here: http://www.breastfeedinginc.ca/conte...agename=videos and here is info on paced bottle feeding: http://www.llli.org/docs/00000000000...astfedbaby.pdf

You will need a good pump, a hospital grade pump if possible, and, if you are not nursing at all, you will want to try to pump at least 10 times a day. And it is extremely important that your pump flanges are fitted properly and it does not hurt to pump! It's defeating the whole purpose if the pump causes further damage.

Also, please don't let your pump output make you think you don't make enough milk. Many moms have difficulty pumping milk-when they first start, especially. How much you can pump is not a good indicator of how much milk you make.

Re: Nursing pain - help :/

Re: Nursing pain - help :/

So it went really well! The latch was NOT fine, the LC helped me correct it and I was able to breastfeed pain free while at her office.
She told me if the latch was good I shouldn't be feeling pain, even with cracked nipples. Let's see if I can do it on my own now...

Re: Nursing pain - help :/

That's wonderful! I hope you can continue to see good results. Don't be too surprised if you don't have quite as much success at home as you did at the LC's office. A lot of moms find there's something magical about the LC's office and they can't quite replicate the same position at home... Hopefully everything is going to go just fine from here on out, but just in case it doesn't I don't want you to feel alone or discouraged.

Re: Nursing pain - help :/

So I don't know why but my baby is now able to latch onto my left brain without pain and manages to nurse on that side.
The problem is that I seem to do exactly the same thing when attempting to latch onto the right breast but the pain is still terrible,no matter what. He won't open his mouth wide enough, or he will clamp down too soon. My right nipple is pink and sore, but no cracks are visible now. I wonder why it still hurts like that. We were at the LCs office today but we also weren't able to latch correctly there. So what am I supposed to do now? I ve been feeding baby from the left breast and pumping from the right (give him the expressed milk after he feeds from the breast) for 3 days now. Should I keep doing this and wait for him to magically manage to open wider or should I endure the pain so he'll be able to get some training on that breast? I'm afraid if I let him nurse and it´s painful it will crack again and we go back to the beginning... Everybody says "it s gonna get better" but WHEN? I seem to have tried everything :/ Sorry for the ranting but right now it just seems nothing is helping.

Re: Nursing pain - help :/

It's pretty common to have one breast that is more difficult than the other. Something about the breast shape, the nipple, the baby's latch on that side... It's not necessarily anything you or your baby are doing "wrong". The fact that you have gotten that side to heal says that you are making progress, and that you will eventually be able to use that side without pain. Sometimes it's just a matter of waiting for the baby to grow big enough to get past the difficulties with his latch. A tiny mouth just can't latch on nice and deep the way a big mouth can.

As to why your right nipple still hurts, here are some possibilities:
- the breast shield on the pump isn't a proper fit- try moving up a size or lubing the nipple with some olive oil (they have that in Portugal, right? )
- you're pumping too hard- try starting the pump out on mimum suction and gradually working up to a higher level
- baby's latch just isn't ideal on that side yet- so keep experimenting with different positions, using the pump when necessary, and be patient. Babies really do outgrow latch issues, I promise!

As to when you can expect things to get better, well, that's hard to say. A lot of moms find that they reach a turnaround point by around 6 weeks, after which things get much, much better! But it could take less time than that, or more. I had about the worst experience possible, and had cracks for about 4.5 months on one side and 5 months on the other. Just when I had reached the point where I had utterly given up, and was committed to nursing on open sores for a year (but not one day more!) the cracks just scabbed over and healed completely, leaving no scars. I do not think your experience is going to be that bad, though. The fact that you are already crack-free on the difficult side makes me think that you're looking at a time frame of weeks, not months.

Re: Nursing pain - help :/

Thanks for the advice mommal! I started lubing with olive oil as you suggested, and I think it's getting better! I suspect the pump is not helping the healing process, but this should make it better. Think I'll give it another day and then try to nurse again on that side.
Thanks again!